Tuesday, August 21, 2012

An Interview with Peter Lovesey

Recently, I had the great honour to interview Peter Lovesey, author of such excellent books as The False Inspector Dew, Rough Cider, or Bertie and the Tinman. It is my opinion that Lovesey is one of the finest mystery novelists working today, so as you can guess, it was really quite an exciting event for me!I'd like to thank Doug Greene and Curt Evans for helping to make this interview possible. I'd also like to thank Peter Lovesey himself, for putting up with my questions and graciously responding each time. I loved getting the chance to do this interview, and I now present it to you, the reader, for your pleasure and education.

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Patrick: It’s fairly well-known that you wrote your
first mystery, Wobble to Death, for a competition offered by Macmillan
Publishing, where the grand prize was one thousand pounds. The book was written
with a Victorian “wobble” as its background, and as you well know, it was
rather successful! It became the first of a series of novels starring the
Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb. So just how did you go about writing
Wobble to Death? Were you already a mystery reader, or did you have to
read some mysteries and figure out what the game was about? Did you look at
some previous efforts in the historical-mystery department? Were you influenced
by any particular novels?

Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death had to be written in just over three months
for the competition deadline and I was teaching five days a week, so I didn’t
have time to look around for templates. Fortunately I knew plenty about
Victorian athletics and had written a non-fiction book called The Kings of
Distance, so I could work with the confidence that I could finish a book
and that the “research” was all in the notebooks I had already filled at the
National Newspaper Library. As a kid, I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories
and some Leslie Charteris, featuring the Saint. I think I had also read one
Agatha Christie called The ABC Murders. The real mystery buff was my
wife Jax, who devoured them at the rate of three or four a week, so she was a
huge help. She was in hospital for most of the time and she would read through
each chapter as I completed it and we’d discuss the progress of the book when I
visited each evening. I can’t say I was influenced by any particular novels.

P: Did you change your approach when writing
the next entries in the Cribb series? And were there any authors out there who
particularly influenced and/or encouraged your writing efforts?

P.L.: Well, I kept the
same policemen and stayed in the same period of about 1880 and as the series
developed I explored Victorian entertainments including pugilism, the music
hall, spiritualism, river trips, the seaside and photography, but I didn't want
to get locked into a formula, so I changed the point of view from which the
story was told. For example, the second book, The Detective Wore Silk
Drawers, was seen largely through the eyes of a young policeman, Henry
Jago, who went undercover to investigate illicit prize-fighting, and another of
the books was largely about Constable Thackeray, Cribb's loyal and exploited
assistant. I was also experimenting with plot. You asked about influences.
Swing, Swing Together was my attempt to follow the river trip of
Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, and writing a crime story
instead. Invitation to a Dynamite Party (The Tick of Death in the
US edition) was a reworking of Ian Fleming's plot in Goldfinger. In my
version, the famous golf match became a hammer-throwing competition and the
raid on Fort Knox was converted into an attempt to assassinate the Prince of
Wales, using a primitive submarine. In all the books I wove the plots into real
events. A Case of Spirits was inspired by the famous medium, Daniel
Home. Waxwork was a distillation of the trials of the women poisoners
who fascinated and alarmed the Victorians.

P: So what was it that drew you so much to the
Victorian era, in which you set not only your Cribb series but also the stories
of “Bertie”, Prince of Wales? Among these Victorian novels, are there any that
you’re particularly proud of, be it due to characters, plotting, or historical
colour?

P.L.: My interest in the
history of sport gave me some insight into the period. I enjoyed the earnest
efforts of the Victorians in whatever pursuit they took up, so often within the
restrictions of a rigid class system. There's something endearing about the
ingenuity of people in making a living in hard times, sometimes beating the
system. The desire for respect was as strong as it is now, but there were
perils at every turn and comfortable lives could be undermined overnight. I
like to think of the Victorian gentleman reading The Times in his gracious home
in front of a coal fire and suddenly realising that catastrophe has struck and
his secret collection of paintings of nudes is about to be part of a police
investigation. I wouldn't say any of the books make me proud, but I enjoyed
writing them all and it pleases me if readers enjoy them too. The books
featuring Bertie as an inept amateur sleuth were fun to write. The first, Bertie
and the Tinman, was my shot at a Victorian Dick Francis and used the death
of Fred Archer, a real Victorian jockey, as the starting point of a story of
action and, I hope, some thrills. Bertie and the Crime of Passion was
set in Paris, again using a real person, Sarah Bernhardt, as a main character.
And Bertie and the Seven Bodies was my homage to Agatha Christie in the
year of her centenary, with a plot built around a familiar rhyme that most
people know. I did about as much with the character of Bertie as I could whilst
being loyal to what is known of his real character. In all, I wrote eleven
Victorian mysteries and several more one-off novels that I suppose you'd call
historical, moving on towards World War 2.

P: It’s good that you brought those up, because
I was hoping to be able to mention them! In particular, I was hoping to talk
about your murder-in-retrospect novel Rough
Cider, which I personally consider one of your very finest achievements. I
have never read a novel that brings
WWII so vividly to life through the eyes of a child. Did you draw on personal
experiences for the book, and if so, how much of reality found its way into the
novel?

P.L.: Rough Cider is the book that comes closest to my own
life, except that I wasn’t witness to a murder. In August, 1944, when I was
seven, our house was destroyed by a V1 flying bomb, or “doodlebug” as we called
them. Fortunately my family all escaped, although the neighbours in the other part
of our semi-detached house in suburban London were killed. Being homeless, we
moved to the country and were billeted with a farming family in Cornwall, who
didn’t particularly relish having three small boys in their farmhouse. So at an
impressionable age I learned what it was like to be an evacuee. Later, when we
returned to London to a temporary home, much kindness was shown to us by GIs
from the local US army base. Some of these memories found their way into the
book. So, also, did a later phase of my life, when I was a student at
Reading University. But I have to say that the cider part was mostly learned
from books on wine-making, except for one formative experience as a young
airman when I drank too much rough cider. I wrote the book a long time ago, so
I can’t recall if it was challenging to write. I think not. Rather more
challenging for me was the Edgar nomination. It’s tough sitting through an
awards dinner wondering if your book has been chosen and finally learning that
it hasn’t. But I guess a nomination was better than being ignored.

P: I can only imagine the suspense! You have
won several awards throughout your career, though—the most notable possibly
being the Gold Dagger Award for The False
Inspector Dew. Your short stories have also won some awards. Do you prefer
writing novels or short stories? And in a similar vein, do you prefer writing
books with a series character or the challenge of writing those one-off,
non-series books? Have you ever started a book with the intention of writing
another series entry but ended up doing a one-off, or vice versa?

P.L.: Short stories are
such fun to write because you can take risks and experiment with the form, so,
yes, if I could make a living, I'd concentrate on them. I've been a full-time
writer since 1975, and I can make a living with a novel about once a year, but
it would take a heap of short stories to keep the wolf from the door. As for
the series books, I do occasionally like to break off and try something
different. The title you mention, The False Inspector Dew, is probably
my most successful critically, and appears in a number of those "top
hundred mysteries" compilations. The one I like best didn't win any
prizes, but brings in nice letters from some of those who read it. It's called The
Reaper, and is about a village rector who murders the bishop in chapter
one. As for your last question, no, I plan the books and know where they are
heading, so I haven't ever had a series book ending as a one-off. or the
reverse.

P: The Reaper is
an example of the ‘inverted’ murder story, made so popular by Anthony Berkeley
under the name Francis Iles, though many authors ranging from C. S. Forester to
R. Austin Freeman have tried their hand at it. What made you want to try your
hand at such a story? Was there an element of homage in it to any one of your
illustrious predecessors in this domain?

P.L.: It's a refreshing
challenge to tell the reader at once who the murderer is and I enjoy reading
this kind of novel as well as writing it. I thought Malice Aforethought
by Iles/Berkeley was a fine achievement and I also relished some of Patricia
Highsmith's working of the same theme. so I may have been influenced by them.
My own attempts - another was On The Edge (reissued as Dead Gorgeous
after a TV film was made from it) - are at a more modest level. I wouldn't
aspire to pay homage to either great writer. The Reaper encapsulated my
experience of village life after living in Upper Westwood in Wiltshire for
almost twenty years, but you have to believe me when I tell you that none of
the characters are based on my friends and neighbours.

P: More recently, your “main” series of books
is the one starring Peter Diamond, set in modern day. Why did you choose to
start writing this series, whose time period is so different from the
historical novels you became known for? Was it the attraction of going to a
completely different time period, or did you have stories that wouldn’t have
worked well in the Victorian Age? Or was it something else entirely?

P.L.: Yes, my timing
wasn't the best. I abandoned "historicals" just when everyone was
buying them. I'd written a number of short stories set in the present as well
as three modern novels as Peter Lear (Goldengirl, Spider Girl and The
Secret of Spandau), so I felt ready to take on the challenge of writing
about contemporary crime. As a career writer I couldn't see myself spending the
next thirty years writing about the Victorian era, so I created Peter Diamond,
a modern police detective working in the city of Bath, which I know well. But
there are still elements of history in the Diamond books. Bath has a long and
colourful past and I've been able to weave in sub-plots featuring Jane Austen's
aunt, Mary Shelley, a Civil War battle and nineteenth century
stone-mining.

P: Another piece of the past, rather recent but
often very forgotten, is the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”. You wove that
into your Peter Diamond novel Bloodhounds,
writing something of a tribute to such stories, in particular the “impossible
crime” novels of John Dickson Carr. We also see a lot of a group of mystery
aficionados who form the “Bloodhounds”, and their conversations are one of the
book’s most enjoyable assets. Could you tell us a bit about writing Bloodhounds? It really seems to have
been a labour of love— did you enjoy
writing it? Was it a challenge to invent your locked-room riddle’s solution? Do
you side with any of the Bloodhounds in your views of detective fiction? And do
you have any particular favourite authors/books from the Golden Age?

P.L.: I’m old enough to
have been reviewed by John Dickson Carr and I met a number of the second wave
of “Golden Age” writers, so I take an interest in the period. As a writer of
whodunits, I must be one of an endangered species along with the polar bear and
the orang-utan. The classic puzzle mystery with clues, suspects and surprises
remains a joy to read and write. I once gave a talk in the crypt of St
Michael’s Church in Bath, where the Bloodhounds meet in the story and this gave
me the idea for the book. Then a number of influences played their part. I’ve
been a reader of Geoff Bradley’s magazine CADS from its beginning and before
that the Armchair Detective, Deadly Pleasures, the Drood Review and others who
valued the traditional detective story. So it’s true that I had great fun in
putting the story together. Of course I re-read Dickson Carr’s The Hollow
Man (it has another title in the US) with its famous chapter on the locked
room mystery, so this was a key element in the plotting. As for favourites, I
must admit that I’m not a regular reader of crime fiction and have never read
many of the classics. If you asked me if I preferred Christie to Sayers, I’d
say I’m a Christie man. Ellery Queen rather than SS Van Dine. But I also have a
strong affection for Hammett, Chandler and Charteris – which helped to fuel the
debates in Bloodhounds.

P: Let’s take a brief detour now into your
television career. You wrote a number of scripts for the television series Cribb, based on your stories. In fact,
you collaborated on many of those scripts with your wife—was it a close
collaboration? Was it strange, adapting your own work for the small screen? Did
you ever watch the finished episodes for yourself, and if so, what did you
think of them? Did you like the casting choices? Are there any particular favourites?

P.L.: June Wyndham Davies
happened to read a good review of Waxwork in Time Magazine and persuaded
Granada TV to buy the rights and make a 90min pilot episode that was broadcast
at Christmas, 1979. It starred Alan Dobie as Sergeant Cribb. It was well
received and a series of one-hour plays based on the other seven books in the
series followed. They went out on Sunday evenings and did extremely well and
grossed the highest takings of any programme put out by Granada, more than Coronation
Street or World in Action. Granada decided to commission more
scripts and I was invited to write them. But they wanted them quickly, so Jax,
my wife, nobly agreed to write three of the six, leaving me with the other
three. Of course we knocked them into shape together and it was done in as
intensive a spell of writing as I can remember. Writing directly for TV, rather
than condensing book plots (I had earlier adapted my own book The Detective
Wore Silk Drawers) meant that we could write stories suited to the one-hour
slot. They continued to do well and sold widely abroad. In America Cribb was
chosen to launch the Mystery! programme for PBS TV and I went over to Los
Angeles to publicise it there. Of course I wish now that the time slot had been
longer for each episode, but I can’t complain. They were made with sensitivity
and care. Marvellous actors appeared in the series. My favourite of the adaptations
based on books was Wobble to Death, with a screenplay by Alan Plater. Of
those written specially for TV, my favourite is Something Old, Something New,
written by Jax, and featuring a Victorian wedding.

P: You were also listed as a “story consultant”
for the TV series Rosemary and Thyme.
What exactly does that mean?

P.L.: That was the ideal
job, advising on other people’s scripts, making suggestions and going to all
the parties and meeting the actors. It was a series that tapped into two
favourite themes of TV audiences: gardening and crime. With Felicity Kendal and
Pam Ferris as stars, and Brian Eastman (who made the long-running Poirot series)
as producer, it couldn’t help doing well. Ultimately there are only a limited
number of stories that can feature two gardeners discovering corpses in the
course of their work, so it ran its course. But I’d recommend “story
consultant” as a win-win job for anyone who gets the opportunity. And I did get
to write a Rosemary and Thyme Christmas story for the Daily Mail.

P: Has there been any interest in bringing
Peter Diamond to the screen? Would you like seeing that happen?

P.L.: The series has been
optioned more than once and scripts and treatments have been written, but no
one has cracked it yet. The city of Bath film office are keen to see it happen
and, yes, so am I. I live in hope, but I’ve learned not to count on anything. Wobble
to Death was originally optioned for a film by Carl Foreman, the writer of
High Noon and Young Winston. And The False Inspector Dew was
actually bought for Peter Falk for a six-figure sum, but it’s still on the
shelf at Columbia Pictures.

P: To return to your novels, you recently
released your brand-new Peter Diamond novel Cop
to Corpse. I had the honour of reading it myself a while back and I highly
enjoyed it. As you well know, it’s a novel about a serial killer murdering
policemen, a classic plot device throughout mystery fiction. The two instances
that come to mind right away are Ed McBain’s classic police procedural Cop Hater and Philip Macdonald’s X Vs. Rex. Did you have either of these
novels in mind when you wrote your own? Was this an enjoyable book to write, or
was it more on the difficult side? How did you get the idea? Did it take a long
time to write?

P.L.: No, I haven’t had
the pleasure of reading Cop Hater or X vs Rex. I’m afraid I don’t
keep up. After Stagestruck, set mainly inside the Theatre Royal, I
wanted more of an outdoor book with some action scenes. You just need variety
in the writing. Cop to Corpse was written as a whodunit with pace, and,
yes, it took me about ten months to complete, rather quicker than some of the
Peter Diamond series. The serial killer idea isn’t central to the story because
we come in after the third shooting and the emphasis is on the chase rather
than the shock of a series of murders. Much of it is set in the woods close to
where we lived for almost twenty years, allowing me the luxury of visualising
the events in a vivid way. I’m glad you enjoyed it. The reviews have been
encouraging.

P: So what lies in store for the future? Have you ever
considered bringing back Bertie or Sergeant Cribb for another novel?

P.L.: At my age it’s good
to have any future at all. The next in the Peter Diamond series, called The
Tooth Tattoo, will appear next year. I’m under way with yet another Diamond
novel. Cribb and Bertie have made cameo appearances in short stories, but I
can’t foresee them making it into a novel-length book. Thanks for all your
interest, Patrick. I’ve enjoyed being At the Scene of the Crime.

Hi Patrick, long term reader but first time writer here, just want to add my compliments at getting such a great writer as Peter Lovesey on your blog. Ever since reading Wobble to Death about 4 years ago I realised here was a series i needed to read, and slowly, in case i finished them (3 more to go 2 of which i still need to buy). Added to this walter dew, rough cider and bloodhounds (the last of which i bought on your recommendation) just confirmed my view of him as the consummate 'modern age' storyteller; and since reginald hill's untimely passing this year, the only one left of that vintage still writing top quality crime fiction. My regards to him, to curt and to you, for inspiring me to seek out loads of writers suited to my taste

David, thanks a lot for commenting! It's absolutely terrific to hear from you and I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear your compliments. Hopefully you'll keep commenting in the future-- I'm glad you've found something you like on this site!